TidyBlog

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Category Archives: Business

Over the past few months Tidy Design has been working closely with NHS England to design and develop a web based portal for expecting mums. It was great to receive some glowing feedback from the project manager yesterday…

“We chose to work with Tidy Design as they had designed another local maternity app ‘mybirthplace.org’. We have been so impressed with the experience we have had; having regular updates and contact with the team. When we have wanted changes made these have been undertaken in a timely manner and we always experienced a very professional and dedicated team… Thank you so much for your amazing work!” – Donna Evans (NHS NORTH EAST HAMPSHIRE AND FARNHAM)

You can find out more about My Maternity at mymaternity.org.uk. Below I have uploaded a batch of illustrations I created for this project:

The way we communicate, purchase goods, sell our goods, consume our entertainment and more has changed drastically over the last 20 years. With the creation of the Internet, everything changed, forever. We are now on the brink of a new change, a change that could potentially see more privacy, consolidation of power and with it new norms for how we handle day to day tasks.

Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like BitCoin, but unlike BitCoin Ethereum offers a lot more potential. Ethereum is a net of computers, where each computer using Ethereum becomes part of this net. This is where the decentralised aspect comes from, with every computer running Ethereum being a node of the overall “super computer” an attack becomes a lot more complicated. If someone were to try to attack a current web2.0 application there would be one central hub for them to take down, making it an easier task over for it to be overcome by the attacker. If someone wanted to attack a decentralised application running on Ethereum there is no central point for them to attack, a full blown attack targeting multiple nodes would need an incredible amount of computational power. There are currently around 30,000 nodes and for a successful attack to take place you’d have to take over 51% of those to do any damage.

Security isn’t the only benefit of Ethereum and it’s net of nodes, currently if Facebook’s main servers were to go down every user would be unable to use Facebook until they fixed their issue. For an application based on Ethereum to go offline every node (computer running Ethereum) would have to go down, the chances of this are incredibly slim.

Ethereum as an application platform is way to remove the middle men from transactions, ultimately bringing around more peer to peer communication and trust. Right now, if I wanted to book a taxi using the Uber application all data would run through their server and they would have control over all of that information. Now if Uber were to have been built on Ethereum a “Smart Contract” would be written and deployed onto the blockchain, this Smart Contract would run all on Ethereum nodes, each node would contain the relevant data and a confirmation process would make sure all data was correctly stored before adding your transaction to the blockchain. This cuts out large 3rd party fees and the risk of their service going down when you need it.

Web 3.0 is made up from 3 technologies, Ethereum, Swarm and Whisper. The blockchain becomes your “sever backend”, a p2p backend. Swarm and Whisper are complementary technologies to Ethereum;

Let’s face it, company branding is a pretty important part of business; we need to get it right! So many of us neglect it, not allocating time to that important question; what does my brand/business stand for?

When I think of branding and brand development I think of a company logo (or name), a website (its images and content), social media activity, the people behind the products or services on offer, company values and end-goals. Branding is combination of these important elements – add them all together and this is how a customer perceives you.

I believe a strong brand identity will provide a company value beyond physical assets. Its worth a time investment, something us business folk should step back & review every so often…

Our Mission

Here at Tidy Design our mission is simple; to deliver a return on investment, be it for our customers or the staff we employ, working together we will do better. Each day we set out to offer our customers a quality service, the goal being to leave a long lasting and positive impression. Happy customers result in repeat business.

Thanks for stopping by, if you have any questions or feedback then please post them below.

It’s been a busy period here at Tidy Design. After several years being based in Old Portsmouth we’ve decided to move on to a more fitting web dev environment.

We’ve said goodbye to the seaside view and quirky Royal Naval Club building and replaced it with the brand new high tech offices at Pure Offices in Port Solent. It’s a very different feel from what we’re used to but the modern furnishing, high speed broadband, and opportunity to expand makes it a welcome transition.

It’s not only the move that’s been keeping us busy. Website updates, redesigns and software projects (Yes you read that right, Tidy Design do more than just web development) have been making sure the new office is filled with tapping keyboards. Some of our latest redesigns include The Queen’s Hotel Portsmouth and TEG English language colleges, be sure to take a look! On the software side of things Jonno has stepped up to the plate taking over the development reins on ASSIST-CKD, our Kidney Research UK project in partnership with the NHS and is doing a fantastic job.

Unfortunately as our focus has been placed on clients our own website has become slightly neglected. Not anymore though, we will be dedicating some time to this and soon you’ll find a fresh website with a updated portfolio so you can see all of our current up to date projects. Keep your eye out for our new website launch which will be coming soon…

As a start in a 2017 effort to update and revamp TidyDesign.com, we have upgraded to HTTPS, the security-concerned friend of HTTP.

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, and it denotes the set of rules computers use while communicating in HyperText (web pages) over the web. That HTTP’s rules underpin the web can be seen in the typical URL – “http://website.com”. The prefix to that address denotes the protocol in use.

You may have noticed that more and more sites over the past decade are labelled with a different prefix – “https://website.com”. This denotes that the site is accessed over HTTPS; or HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS adds security concerns to HTTP’s base ruleset, ensuring that all transferred data is encrypted, undamaged and travelling to an authenticated recipient (in other words, HTTPS helps ensure that you are actually browsing Amazon.com, not someone pretending to be Amazon).

For the modern web, HTTPS is important. There’s no way around it. HTTP doesn’t concern itself much with secure communication, because the original purpose of the web was just to share textual information. The modern web, by which we trade personal details millions of times a second, requires a more secure underlying ruleset. When you’re sending someone your credit card details to make a purchase, you’re going to want that to be encrypted – it’s as simple as that.

There are reasons other than adapting to industry standards to upgrade to HTTPS, from SEO to simple consumer reassurance. Google ranks secure sites higher than insecure sites by default, so upgrading is a good first-step for getting to page one. Consumers are becoming more aware of security concerns on the web, too – largely thanks to that green padlock you see next to secure web addresses in the browser – and are less likely to provide any details over an insecure connection. The sound theory is that if you provide a secure connection, your customer is much more likely to contribute to your business with confidence.

Implementation of HTTPS for a domain involves purchasing a certificate from a Certificate Authority, and some server configuration. Those certificates verify domains as being owned by the people who claim to own them, facilitating the green padlock your users will see. Here at Tidy, we’re happy to provide this service and set up secure connections, moving the web forward and growing your business – just give us a call, or send us an email.

Evening all, it has been a while! Tonight I thought it a good idea to write a quick blog post, something to say “hi, Tidy Design is still here!” and “thank you clients old and new, you have been keeping us very busy!”

Tidy Design – Guest Speakers at ASSIST-CKD

Testing 1 2 3 – getting ready to present…

Since I last sat down and wrote a blog post so much has happened, it is hard to know where to start. We have designed and launched several new sites, worked with Kidney Research UK to develop some life changing software, taken on a few new NHS projects, recruited, processed hundreds of website updates and celebrated a Christmas / New Years!

Christmas 2016

Finding the time to write new blogs posts and update our website (portfolio page) has been difficult, but this is something we are working on so please stay tuned – thank you for visiting.

Attention all web designers / developers based in Portsmouth, we are looking to recruit a full-time individual to join Team Tidy!

Our office is located at the Royal Naval Club in Old Portsmouth. Here we create bespoke websites for amazing clients.

Over the past couple of months our business has evolved, we therefore need someone enthusiastic and motivated to help us take Tidy Design to the next level – Does this sound like you?

If you are a competent web design / web developer with good knowledge of CSS, HTML, JS, jQuery, PHP and MySQL then we want to hear from you this summer – please send rosie@tidydesign.com your CV / cover letter / portfolio today!

A few weeks ago Solent Fire contact us to discuss their website, it was pretty dated and required a complete re-design. Working with Solent Fire we put together a couple of design concepts, these soon evolved into the new website, please see below:

We hope you like the look and feel of SolentFire.co.uk, Tidy Design is delighted with the end result. We are now discussing the next phase of website development, please stay tuned…

Finally, it was great to receive such positive feedback from Solent Fire on this project, thank you so much for choosing Tidy Design.

Hard to believe the first quarter of 2016 is already over – a massive “thank you” must go out to all our clients, you have kept us very busy!

All in all it has been an eventful three months for Tidy Design; we have started to work with several new clients, we have seen lots of repeat business, we have been interviewing, growing as a company and working very hard to deliver a quality service day in day out…

Doors certainly do open when you work hard; word of mouth is by far the best form of advertising (sorry Google) as this year has shown. From working with Portsmouth NHS two years ago we have now started to work with Wessex Strategic Clinical Networks, liaising with NHS trusts in Bournemouth, Dorchester, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Poole and Southampton…

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Here at Tidy Design our mission is simple; to deliver a return on investment, be it for our customers or the staff we employ, working together we will do better. Each day we set out to offer our customers a quality service, the goal being to leave a long lasting and positive impression. Happy customers result in repeat business.

The staff we employ are very important to Tidy Design, our ethos is to look after each other and grow together. We aim to learn and do better in all aspects of life, this mindset is key to growth and development.

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